Saturday, March 30, 2013

Easter Sunday: Seeking the Living in a Graveyard

The
women watched as Joseph of Arimathea wrapped Jesus’ body and laid it in the
tomb. There wasn’t enough time, it was too fast, almost Sabbath. This just wasn’t
right; it wasn’t the way they wanted to honor their Lord.

So they
went, to retrieve spices carefully tended and preserved, packed away for such
an occasion, To purchase ointment and more rare spices before the vendors closed
for Sabbath.

To bring their best, an offering of love, the final act they would
do for their Lord.

They
started out early, each carrying her offering, each determined to do what
should’ve been done three days ago, no matter what - after all, Jesus has been
in the closed up, hot tomb for three days.

They
came to the tomb, spices in hand; ointments ready to prepare the body of their
dead loved one.

We’ve
all stood at that moment, facing the finality of death. Maybe it was in the
funeral home, meeting with the funeral director, selecting just the right
casket, just the right songs to proclaim to the world how much your loved one
meant to you.

Maybe
it was that moment in the doctor’s office when the word cancer was first said.

That
moment when the bags were loaded in the trunk and a slamming front door sounded
the end of a relationship.

The
moment when you walked out of work and as the outside air hit your face, you
realized that like it or not, you no longer worked there.

The
moment so many years ago when angry words left someone’s mouth, and parent and
child, or brother and sister, took one last look and walked silently away.

That
moment when a drink or a pill became the most important thing in life. That
moment when dreams become lost, and hope for the future disappears. That moment
when you couldn’t bear

to look at yourself in the mirror because you didn’t
like what you saw.

That
moment when you turn off the TV news, put down the paper, shut off the Internet
because you just can’t hear one more report of tragedy, war, hunger, pain – one
more report about brokenness, greed, hatred.

At some
place, at some time, we’ve all walked the same path to the tomb the women walked
that morning.

It
never occurred to them that Jesus would not be there. After all, the dead stay dead.

The
open tomb, the scattered linen wrappings puzzled them. They stood and stared,
not comprehending.

Suddenly
a bright light and two angels startled them.
Dropping jars and scattering spices, they fell to the ground, bowing
before these divine messengers.

“Why do you look for the living
among the dead? He is not here, but has
risen.”

The
thing is they weren’t looking for the living.
They came to look for the dead among the dead. The spices and the ointments in their hand
prove that they never expected to find Jesus alive. It wasn’t until the angels
told these women who had travelled with Jesus for three years to remember that
they looked beyond their grief and pain.
Only then did they remember all that Jesus said and done and how he
predicted not only his death but this very moment when they would discover that
he’d been raised from the dead.

They
had forgotten to look for the living.
Maybe they just found it too hard to believe that after that horrible
death, there was any possibility of life.

Where
those places where we still look for the living among the dead?

Because
we do this - well, actually, we don’t look for the living among the dead. Like the women that first Easter morning, we
look for the dead among the dead. Like
the women, we expect death and brokenness in the very places where God’s told
us there will be life.

Resurrection
– it’s not an easy thing to believe. My
dad always said there were two things you could count on – death and taxes. Resurrection messes with the way things are
supposed to be. It defies the natural
order of things.

Resurrection
means something supernatural has to have happened – something has broken into
the natural order of things.

It
means God happened.

It was
just as hard for Jesus’ followers to wrap their mind around the idea of
resurrection as it is for people today. The
women’s story of the angels and the empty tomb sounded like “an idle tale.”
Actually that’s a pretty mild translation of leiros, the word Luke uses to describe the

Leiros or not, Peter had to go check it
out for himself. He goes and sees the empty tomb, the scattered linens – he
doesn’t get angel messengers, so he stands there on his own trying to figure it
out. He’s amazed, puzzled, and very, very confused.

Resurrection
is not an easy thing to believe. It takes the disciples some time to figure
this out. There are doubts and
fears. That’s normal – because the empty
tomb changes everything.

And it
takes times to wrap your mind about a change that shakes your whole world, that
turns everything you knew about how life works upside down.

It
takes time for them to realize that the empty tomb changes everything.

The
empty tomb changes everything. God happens; God comes down and walks among us.
God suffers as we suffer, experiences death just like we experience death – and
then breaks the power of death. That very first Easter morning, when the women
find the tomb empty, they discover the first sign that things are no longer the
same.

Jesus
resurrection means that death the longer has the last word, that life and love
are stronger than death.

Jesus’
resurrection means that God’s kingdom has come, is coming – that God is working
to re-create, to bring closer that day when all tears are wiped from the eyes
and that there is a new heaven and a new earth and Jesus rules and justice and
peace and love.

Jesus
resurrection means that when we hear of the death and experience death – bad
news, tragedy, sickness, poverty, broken relationships, lost dreams - that we look
for the living, we look for life.

Jesus
resurrection means that God, in whom we live and move and have our being, says “leiros”
to death, and “yes” to life.

1 comment:

About Me

Standing at the crossroads of marriage, motherhood, mid-life and ministry. I am wife of 21 years, mother of two teen-agers, and a pastor in my very first call. I happily claim again the title "Jesus Freak" which I once claimed in my teens. I not-so-happily acknowledge that mid-life is staring me in the face!
I am just a disciple following in the footsteps of the Master. This blog is my musing and reflections on my walk. I pray that other pilgrims on this journey will be inspired by my rambilngs - or at least amused by them!